At sundown on August 31, Muslims all over the world will celebrate one of the principal festivals, Eid al-Adha. Earlier in June, Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr. Ken Chitwood, Ph.D. candidate studying global Islam, explains the two Islamic festivals.

For Juan, Ramadan is a balancing act. On the one hand is his religious faith and practice. On the other is his land, his culture, his home – Puerto Rico.

Although he weaves these two elements of his identity together in many ways, during Ramadan the borderline between them becomes palpable. For the 3,500 to 5,000 Puerto Rican Muslims like Juan, the holy month of fasting brings to the surface the tensions they feel in their daily life as minorities – Muslims among their Puerto Rican family and Puerto Ricans in the Muslim community.

This is the question I often get confronted with when I tell people what I study.

Yes, I study Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S. Yes, that is a valid field of study. Yes, it has a history you would be surprised about. Yes, the numbers are not as large as other places in the world, but they are higher than you think. Yes, the influence of Muslims in the American hemisphere is lengthy and significant. Let me tell you more...

The essay not only introduces readers to the topic itself, but outlines its main themes and suggests some ways that scholars could inject their energy and efforts to advance this unfolding field of study. These theoretical considerations suggest that more work could be done in expanding the field in its engagement with prevalent theories in the field of global Islamic studies and those that treat the Americas as a geography of dynamic hemispheric engagement and encounter.

Essentially, the paper argues that there is still a necessity to explore the tensions, interactions, frictions, and collaborations across and at the boundaries between the global umma (community) and the American assabiya (local social solidarities), between the global and the local, and between immigrant communities and the growing number of regional converts.

Finally, I also make some suggestions about some practical considerations that may prove beneficial to the field’s advancement.

You step into a place like Centro Islámico, and you don’t feel marginalized. You’re able to be Latino and Muslim at the same time. Your identity is whole.

These are some of the words I shared with Houstonia magazine writer Adam Doster. Having lived in Houston for four years, studied alongside Latinx Muslims in my time there, and continuing as a scholar interested in how Muslim communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S. thrive, adapt, and grow I was honored to contribute to Adam's story.

For more on how these Latinx Muslims have made Houston their home and to read some of my commentary, click the link below.

In his address in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, May 21, while calling on Muslim leaders to lead the fight against terrorism, President Donald Trump identified Iran as a despotic state giving safe harbor and financing terror in the Middle East. As Iran is a Shia state and Saudi Arabia a Sunni-led country, some media outlets criticized Trump for taking sides in the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide.

As a scholar of Islam and a public educator, I often field questions about Sunnis, Shias and the sects of Islam. What exactly is the Shia-Sunni divide? And what is its history?

The Iraqi coalition’s battle against al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (ISIS) fighters in Mosul, Iraq appears to be coming to a close. Reuters reported,

“Seven months into the U.S.-backed campaign, the militants now control only a few districts in the western half of Mosul including the Old City, where Islamic State is expected to make its last stand. The Iraqi government is pushing to declare victory by the holy month of Ramadan, expected to begin on May 27, even if pockets of resistance remain in the Old City, according to military commanders.

As the battle intensifies in its final stages the civilian death toll rages on. Indeed, as TIME reported, “civilian deaths in the battle surged to an all-time high in March.”

The same TIME article made note of how ISIS is using residents of Mosul as “human shields.” Throughout the battle in Mosul there have been numerous reports — from intelligence agencies and news outlets — about innocent civilians being used as “shields” by ISIS fighters. It appears that these civilian deaths are caused by a mix of Iraqi forces’ and U.S. coalition’s tactics and the sheer audacity of ISIS’s practices.

How is it that ISIS can justify the use of human shields? Is it pure barbarism or have the come to see this as a morally reasonable act? Is this practice acceptable according to Muslim law? Is it even shared amongst jihadis?

Have you ever found yourself longing for a more tangible spirituality? Have you dabbled in practices that help you feel more physically in tune with God? Some of us need something more tangible and physical for our spirituality to come alive.

In this post, Ken explores what it might look like to employ a more touch-centered approach to spirituality, worship, study, and discipleship.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya and interact with the local evangelical Lutheran community. During my time there, and in subsequent interviews and conversations, I talked to them about Somalis, al-Shabaab, and their perspective on Christian-Muslim relations.

Long considered – perhaps naïvely – a relative oasis of Christian–Muslim calm, Kenya is seeing increased tension and conflict, mainly exacerbated by al-Shabaab militants, Kenyan military and Christian mobs. Concomitantly, the media and popular sentiment often vilify Somalis. This goes back to government agitprop during the ‘Shifta War’ of the 1960s. Among evangelical Christians, however, attitudes toward Somalis can prove more ambivalent. Drawing on interviews conducted with both Kenyan evangelical Christians and Somali Muslims, this article seeks to examine the theological shift among Kenyan evangelicals wherein they have re-cast Somalis as Samaritans and in doing so have made their primary approach to this conflict one of evangelization, not open hostility. This shift is due to a confluence of factors including community context, economic pragmatism and religious motivations, and the focus on evangelism does not necessarily preclude peace-building. What this article aims to present is a glimpse into the outlook of Kenyan evangelicals toward Somalis, particular Somali Muslims, and discuss these attitudes in the nexus of factors mentioned above. The article will reveal how, by re-casting the Somali ‘villain’ as Samaritan, some Kenyan evangelicals maintain boundaries and foster new identities in East Africa for the sake of a longed-for peace.

Let's talk about stuff. Stuff like a pastor getting caught at counseling. About violence. About being overwhelmed in a digital world. About life, faith, and Jesus. Let's talk.

That's what THRED is about. As the folks at THRED explain, the aim of this new website is that everyone's perspectives and experiences are valid. Each and everyone's thoughts on tough topics matter. THRED believes that we can learn through dialogue and that the hardest topics should be talked about more, not less.

And so, I've joined the THRED writing team and wrote on several topics for them -- specifically those mentioned above. The posts are aimed at a broad audience. While influenced by my faith and personal experiences, they are meant for everyone. I invite you to check out the THRED site and find my work on counseling, digital tech, and more!

The other day I was spending some time with a friend who is in human resources at a major recreation company. As we talked about his experience and training he reminded me of an important principle: diversity and inclusion are not one and the same.

While we often hear them together, and they are related, diversity and inclusion each have their own meanings and applications. Understanding the difference can help churches build a more welcoming, all-embracing, and multi-ethnic church.

Currently, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (the LCMS, the church I’m part of) is one of the least diverse religious groups in the U.S.

While the nation’s overall population is growing more racially and ethnically diverse – and so are many of its religious groups — the LCMS is not anywhere near keeping pace. Among the Pew Research Center’s recent survey of 30 different religious groups, the LCMS ranked 28th in terms of racial and ethnic diversity (among five racial groups: Latina/os, non-Latina/o whites, blacks, Asians, and an umbrella group titled “mixed-race”). In other words, we are overwhelming, homogeneously, white.

Islam in the West. A simple enough statement, but one with multiple derivative implications. For this volume’s purposes, editor Edward E. Curtis IV makes it clear from the start that Islam is to be imagined “as part of, rather than as foreign to” to that which is referred to as “the West” (1).

This point may seem subtle, but it is vitally important in a climate—both popular and academic—that imagines Muslims as outsiders to “Western culture,” and as unassimilated foreigners in matters of national Western polity.

The Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West stakes an important position by not only including readings that exhibit this current bias against Muslims as part of a vision of some trumped-up “clash of civilizations,” but also by showcasing work that highlights the specific and textured ways in which Muslims have long been part of the West and been intimately involved in its political, economic, social, cultural, and religious make-up.

Exploring the presence, and effect, of Muslims in the lands now collectively called “the West” from 711 (when Muslim polity ruled the Iberian Peninsula) to 2015 (amidst the “Global War on Terror”), the book is ambitious in scope and diverse in its contents. It is divided into two parts: “Islam in Western history,” and “Islam in the contemporary West.”

We live in an age of un-ease. We feel on the verge of economic, political, social, and cultural crises and face fear when we do such simple things as hop on the internet, travel to see family, or even walk out our own front door.

If ours is a time of destruction, violence, war, impending judgment, fear, and uneasiness so too was the prophet Micah’s.

It might behoove us then to lean in for a listen when Micah writes, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. What does God require of you? That you act justly and love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

In other words: God’s already made it clear to us how to live in line with his will — to do what is fair and just to our neighbor, to be compassionate and loyal in our love, and to not take ourselves too seriously, but to take God seriously.

What does that look like when it comes to our Muslim neighbor?

Listen to my message below, delivered at St. John's Lutheran Church in Alexandria, VA on Sunday January 29, 2017.

Springer Major Reference Works is producing a new, and first of its kind, Encyclopaedia of Latin American Religions. This encyclopedia provides an overview of the main religions of Latin America and the Caribbean, both its centralized transnational expressions and its local variants and schisms. This includes both Islam and Judaism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are looking for proposals for entries in the encyclopedia on the topics Judaism and Islam in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Those who wish to submit an entry can either a) propose their own topics or b) choose from the list of already proposed entries below.

Please contact Ken Chitwood at kchitwood@ufl.edu to submit your ideas, sign-up for a topic, or for further inquiries. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2017.

Whether it’s the long lines at the post office that are making you angry, the pain from the loss of a loved one last year that lingers, or the stress of putting together the perfect plan for your Christmas party, worship service, or program it can be hard to have fun at Christmas.

And yet, one of the promises of the good news of Christmas is that it can, and should, be fun.

Even so, Christians are too often known for sucking the joy out of the celebrations this time of year. Leading up to Christmas, we can be better known for tension than trimmings, for freaking out rather than reaching out, for anger rather than anticipation.

The invitation to both leaders and laity this season is to let go of the everlasting burden of being so serious, sullen, and always trying to sound so profound.

The roster of Muslim superheroes in the comic book medium has grown over the years, as has the complexity of their depictions.

A new book -- Muslim Superheroes -- tracks the initial absence, reluctant inclusion, tokenistic employment, and then nuanced scripting of Islamic protagonists in the American superhero comic book market and beyond.

I was honored to contribute my own chapter, "Hero and/or Villain? The 99 and the Hybrid Nature of Popular Culture's Production of Islam."

This scholarly anthology investigates the ways in which Muslim superhero characters fulfill, counter, or complicate Western stereotypes and navigate popular audience expectations globally, under the looming threat of Islamophobia. The contributors consider assumptions buried in the very notion of a character who is both a superhero and a Muslim with an interdisciplinary and international focus characteristic of both Islamic studies and comics studies scholarship. Muslim Superheroes investigates both intranational American racial formation and international American geopolitics, juxtaposed with social developments outside U.S. borders.

Providing unprecedented depth to the study of Muslim superheroes, this collection analyzes, through a series of close readings and comparative studies, how Muslim and non-Muslim comics creators and critics have produced, reproduced, and represented different conceptions of Islam and Muslimness embodied in the genre characters.

My chapter in particular deals with The 99 comic book series, which features a predominately Muslim cast of characters whose gifts and superhero powers embody the ninety-nine attributes of Allah from the Qur’an. Debuted in 2006, The 99 captured imaginations and interest, especially with its protagonists in perpetual battle with Rughal, a character styled, in part, on the likes of dissident jihadi leaders such as Osama bin Laden. Al-Mutawa received praise from U.S. President Barack Obama and other national leaders in the Middle East and Europe, but also faced litigation at home in Kuwait and detractors in the U.S. who believed his characters personify terror and so-called “radical Islam.”

Indeed, in my chapter I make the case that The 99’s contents and creator – situated in their historical and political context and analyzed according to subsequent critical receptions on multiple sides – can be read as hybrid entities that undermine simplistic readings of Islam along the lines of the “clash of civilizations” perspective. The 99 positions Islam as a multivalent religious repository that resists essentialization. The comic does the same with “the West.”

Westworld -- a sci-fi Western thriller on HBO -- has taken the television world by storm. It features a cast of characters navigating a theme park where guests can pay to indulge any adventure with the android population in the park, including sexual encounters or fights to the death. As you could imagine, things get weird.

One of the weirdest things is that there is the question of whether or not these androids have souls. Or, if doing whatever humans want to these beings is ethical or sinful.

To talk about these quandaries, Kimberly Winston of Religion News Service interviewed me for a piece entitled, "HBO'S Westworld: Robot Sex and the Nature of the Soul."

She opens with:

...as unsettling as some of the scenes in “Westworld” are, the show raises theological questions about what it means to be human and what it costs us to sacrifice our humanity for momentary pleasure.

Continue reading to explore more about android souls and affect theory, robot sex and sin.

Why does Islam matter in the Americas? When did it arrive here? What values, practices, traditions, & tensions exist within its histories & social dynamics in the West? How can we study Muslim communities in this hemisphere?

In Spring 2017 I will offer a course called, "Islam in the Americas" (REL 4393/LAS 4935) with the UF Religion Department and in association with the UF Center for Latin American Studies. The lecture period will be every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:35-10:25am (coffee is encouraged. Donuts are accepted as bribes...just kidding...kind of).

This course will place Latin America, the Caribbean, & North America within a broader Islamic framework & locate Muslims of various backgrounds & experiences within the hemisphere from the 1500s to today, from Cape Columbia, Canada to Catamarca, Argentina, & many periods & places in between.

The semester will be divided into four main parts: 1) studying global Islam; 2) theoretical themes in the study of religion in the Americas; 3) the history of Islam in the Americas; and 4) country/region specific cartographies of contemporary American Muslim populations.

n attempting to locate, and explore, Islam in the Americas students will first have to apprehend a bit of what it is to study "global Islam." In this introductory part of the course we will spend some time discussing what "Islam" is, what its main texts, traditions, and shared vocabulary are, and how studying Islam globally often means studying Muslim communities locally, but being sure to set them within macro-contexts at the regional, hemispheric, or global levels as well.

Studying Islam in the Americas will also require a theoretical foundation. This second part of our course will cover the heritage and contact of multiple cultures in the Americas -- both across the hemisphere and the Atlantic ocean. In order to do so, we will take a look at the heritage of Europe (specifically al-Andalus), North and West Africa, and other transnational ties via politics, economics, ideologies, technology, and more.

With these foundational aspects in place we will then dive into the study of the history of Islam in the Americas, the third section of course. Looking back to pre-colonial contact with Europe, we will navigate the "deeper roots" of Islam in the Americas that are largely ignored in historical overviews before delving into the "forbidden" and forced passages of Muslims across the Atlantic as conquistadors, slaves, and monsters in the Western imagination. Once here in the hemisphere we will see how Islam took part in, shaped, and was molded by its American context even as Muslims adapted to, resisted, and surrendered to the broader Euro-American worldview and its attendant lifeways.

In the final part of the course we will take a closer look at specific countries and regions ranging from North America to Latin America and the Caribbean. Specifically we will consider constituencies in Brazil, Mexico, Suriname, Trinidad, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, the U.S., and Canada.

Over the course of the semester there will be ample opportunity for students to read and respond, discuss and deliberate the topics via various assignments. However, a semester capstone project, which will be worked on, edited, and completed throughout the course of the spring, will be presented via a final paper and presentation. These projects can take up any number of thematic, chronological, demographic, or geographic topics.

It is my hope that this course will help place Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America within a broader Islamic framework and locate Muslims of various genealogies within the hemisphere over the longue durée. urthermore, this course will aim to focus on local values, practices, traditions, and tensions placing these within larger questions about what kinds of histories, social dynamics, and meaning production make Islam significant, or how its significance is denied, in a part of the world that hasn’t recognized its history here or its contemporary configurations or impact.

If you have any questions, comments, or want to know more about the texts, assignments, or expectations for the course, please do not hesitate to contact me.

On Nov. 8 you will sin. I guarantee it. Especially if you’re planning on voting, or already have voted, there’s a 100% chance of sin being involved.

As human beings, created by God, we are called to participate in the political system of our community. This is part of the “cultural imperative” given to us in Genesis 1:28. We are called to live in, co-create, and engage our community — at the international, national, regional, state, local, and familial level. Sometimes, we are called to make tough decisions that affect the politics of our community.

Such as: does the toilet paper go up and over or down and under? Those of you who navigate the politics of a household know this is a political decision, one that has ramifications far into the future.

I say this not to make light of political decisions — like voting — but to call to our attention the necessity to hold these political deliberations in proper perspective and to diagnose them for what they are in light of God’s reign over all things.

Those with faith in God have been wrestling with the politics of living together in a fallen world since, well, the world fell into sin. Throughout human history God-fearing individuals and communities sought to know God’s will for their nation, their empire, their city, their family. At times, Jesus followers and God’s chosen leaders made wonderful decisions that led to breakthroughs in liberty, freedom, and justice. Other times, not so much. Still other times, they sinned gravely and were on the wrong side of justice, freedom, and liberation.

When we head to the voting booth on November 8 or send in our ballot by mail, we will enter into this long tradition of deciding.

A paradox lies at the heart of the contemporary study of global Islam.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent “war on terror,” which has recapitulated the Huntingtonian clash of civilizations thesis and its emphasis on the false dichotomy between “Islam” and “the West" there has concomitantly been an increase in the academic attention afforded to the study of Islam.

Although the number of Islamic studies degrees conferred has more than doubled in the past decade, Islamic studies has also been remained largely confined to the regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, leaving Muslim communities in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas to the wayside. In a word, even with the rise of the study of global Islam, its scope has failed to fully incorporate other geographies and the study of Islam beyond the Middle East is still underrepresented. Thus, there is still a pertinent need to globalize the study of “global Islam.”

For over a thousand years, Islam has been integral to what is known as "Western civilization." Even so, it is too often assumed assumed that Islam is a foreign element and Muslims in the West are doomed to be out of place and in perpetual conflict. The need for accurate, reliable scholarship on this topic is terribly urgent.

Thus, this has become the focus of my academic research on Islam in the Americas. I am convinced that understanding currents in global Islam -- peaceful and violent, widespread and vernacular, popular and institutional -- must be understood from a truly global perspective, while at the same time being embedded in local histories, tensions, movement, and exchanges. Exploring American Islam -- from Canada to the Caribbean, from Phoenix, Arizona to Patagonia, Argentina -- is a prime manner in which to do so.

Recently I published a book chapter and a peer-reviewed journal article to that effect. The first is titled, "Exploring Islam in the Americas from Demographic and Ethnographic Perspectives." This chapter in Brill's Yearbook of International Religious Demography: 2016discusses some population data concerning Muslims in the Americas and offers pathways for further research based on these statistics. These demographics invite a more thorough study of under-appreciated religious populations that present ample opportunities for research in cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and specifically apropos to the ethnographic study of religion.

The latter work was recently published in the Waikato Islamic Studies Review Vol. 2, No. 2 out of New Zealand. The aim of this paper is to intermesh prevalent theories about globalization with the study of Islam, both historically and contemporaneously. It is, effectively, an attempt to globalize the study of Islam in the Americas and offer several brief examples of avenues to approach this study in the hope to not only feature existent work in the field, but offer further areas for consideration and future research. It covers Islam in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Latina/o U.S.A., and in the "digital borderlands" of Latina/o Muslim specific Facebook pages.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about American Islam's history, contemporary manifestations, and linkages to global Islamic dynamics. Also, for those of you wondering...I am still in my "comp cave." My exams last from mid-October until mid-December. I look forward to returning to the world of writing, analysis, and news commentary in January 2017!

Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America, written by Karoline P. Cook, reviewed by Ken Chitwood in Reading Religion from the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Emigrants from the Atlantic world came to the Americas for various reasons, with many motives, and precipitated by myriad circumstances. Some were forced, some came to escape an old society or to build a new one, others came to acquire riches or set-up shop. Yet, as J.H. Elliott wrote in his tome Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830, “they all faced the same challenge of moving from the known to the unknown, and of coming to terms with an alien environment that would demand of them numerous adjustments and a range of new responses.”

Furthermore, as Elliott continues, “to a greater or lesser degree, those responses would be shaped by a home culture whose formative influence could never be entirely escaped, even by those who who were most consciously rejecting it for a new life beyond the seas.” While the local context with its diverse ecological, material, political, socio-cultural, and religious environments shaped the contours of American colonization and conquest, the colonial world was simultaneously defined and influenced by its transatlantic nature. Significantly, the historical and legal dimensions of imperial statecraft conditioned the experience of various constituencies in even the most far-flung reaches of the American empires.

It is within this transatlantic imperial nexus that Karoline P. Cook situates the narrative of “Muslims and Moriscos in colonial Spanish America.” Yes, that's correct; Muslims came to the Americas as early as the 16th-century...